Minutes for the Business Meeting of the Society
for Utopian Studies.
Held at the Annual Convention of the Society, October 26-29, 2002,
Orlando, Florida
I. Welcome from Naomi Jacobs, President, who thanked local conference
organizers John Barbaret and Peter Sands.
II. Announcement of next year’s conference: Naomi announced
that the 2003 SUS meeting would take place in San Diego at the Bahia
Resort Hotel. The conference dates are October 29-November 3, 2003.
The local organizer will be Paul Majkut of National University.
III. Awards were announced for this year. Thanks were extended
to the Awards Committee chair, Dan Sabia.
a. Art Lewis Award: to Dina Smith, for her paper “Lost
Trailer Utopias,” given at the 2001 conference
b. Eugenio Battisti Award: to Werner Christie Mathison, for
his article “The Underestimation of Politics in Green Utopias:
The Description of Politics in Huxley’s Island, Le Guin’s
The Dispossessed, and Callenbach’s Ecotopia” Utopian
Studies 12.1: 56-78.
c. Distinguished Scholar Award: Gregory Claeys, University of
London; and Gorman Beaucham, University of Michigan.
d. Larry E. Hough Distinguished Service Award given jointly
to Vita Fortunati, University of Bologna; Giuseppa Saccaro del
Buffa, University of Rome, and Arrigo Colombo, university of Lecce.
IV. Treasurer’s Report. Jennifer Wagner-Lawlor reported
that with the income expected to be turned in at the conference
(late registration; field trip charges; miscellaneous) the Society
remains on an even keel financially. Adding up our accounts in Memphis,
in North Carolina, and in Canada, and taking into account further
hotel bills still expected, the Society has about $20,000 toward
its general expenses and the publication of Utopian Studies for
the upcoming year. (This amount is imprecise until the final accounting
for the conference is completed in the upcoming weeks.)
V. “Celebration Tour”: Details of the field trip to
Celebration on Sunday were announced.
VI. Nominations Committee: committee chair Tom Moylan announced
the following nominations: for the Awards Committee, Nicole Pohl
and Fran Shor; for the “at-large” steering committee
member, Bob Fogerty and Ana Acosta; for President, Ken Roemer. There
were no nominations from the floor. The entire roster was approved
without dissent.
VII. Membership Report and Report on the Journal: Lyman Tower Sargent
announced that membership appeared to be somewhat down, but that
that assessment would likely change after all the memberships paid
up at the conference were taken into account. There are currently
about 300 members of the Society. Lyman urged all present to pay
their 2003 dues early in the year, rather than waiting until the
next annual conference.
The production of the last issue of the journal (13.1) was delayed
due to the printer’s schedule; now 13.2 appears to be delayed
due to the illness of the book reviews copyeditor, and Lyman expects
it will be well into 2003 before 13.2 is printed. He hopes the issue
will get back on schedule after that, and he is already working
on volume 14.
Lyman reported as well that the journal ‘rejects’ outright
very few articles; it also accepts outright very few articles. Usually
authors are given a revise and resubmit response, and if substantial
revisions are made, the editor will send the article out again to
one old reader and one new. The Advisory Board this week decided
to add a few sentences to the contributor guidelines, informing
potential contributors that normally only one resubmission will
be permitted.
All back issues are available for sale; whole sets are available
@ $150 off the individual-issue sale price. Also available are copies
of the old book series, and back issues of Alternative Societies.
Anyone interested in any of these should contact Lyman.
Finally: Lyman is planning to resign as editor. Arrangements are
not quite final for takeover by a new editor; it is hoped that there
will be a definitive offer made in a month or so. The editorial
transition subcommittee meeting would follow the business meeting.
VIII. Utopus Discovered: Carrie Hintz reported that the editors
are eager to: receive any announcements; to expand offerings and
features. They would like more responses to the question, “What
made you a utopianist?” as this has been a popular feature.
They are starting a book review series for fiction and poetry, and
are continuing the bibliography of recent scholarship. Please forward
any article titles, books, dissertations, etc. to carriehintz@hotmail.com
IX. Internet presence: Peter Sands reported on the status of H-Utopia.
He invited members to consider writing on-line reviews for H-Review.
Contact Peter and <sands@uwm.edu>
for information on H-Net and H-Review.
X. Announcement about upcoming conference: Alex-Alban Gomez Coutouly
announced the 4th International Utopian Studies Conference in Madrid,
June 25-29, 2003. He encouraged all to attend; the deadline for
paper submission is March 15, 2003.
XI. Thanks (and applause) were given to Naomi Jacobs, outgoing
president, and to Lyman Tower Sargent, outgoing US editor, for their
outstanding service to the Society for Utopian Studies.
XII. The meeting was adjourned. |
